Friends of Bnei David
Friends of Bnei David is a UK registered charity (no. 1010914). According to the UK Charity Commission, the charity exists to provide support to B'nei David in the illegal settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank. [1] [2] B'nei David is a pre-military preparatory academy for the Israel Defense Forces.[3]
Established in 1988, Bnei David proclaims itself Israel’s first yeshiva academy, or mechina, to combine Torah studies with full-length military service. Bnei David’s programme offers religious education, ‘paramilitary training’ and political studies. It claims—not implausibly —to have started ‘a quiet revolution’ in the IDF by filling the ranks of the Israeli military with zealots. On its website, Bnei David links supporters to donate through the One Israel Fund’s ‘Bnei David Mechina Program’ in the United States.
Lior Shtul, former mayor of Eli and current CEO of B’nei David, is one of the charity’s directors. During his military service, Shtul served in the Tzabar Battalion of the Giv’ati Brigade. He was one of the founders of the Eli settlement when it was little more than an outpost, and is a member of the extremist Jewish Home party that supports the religious nationalist project: ‘This is a big movement: the [national] religious are leaving the ‘learning world’ and going to the ‘doing world’. This is what we are educating our guys for. So today you see them in the army, you see them in the political parties, you see them in the public sector’. Shtul explicitly opposes a two-state agreement, telling one journalist that: ‘I think diplomats will continue to talk and we will continue to create facts on the ground… The more people [who] live here, the less talk there will be about a two-state solution.’ In January 2013 Haaretz reported that Shtul was heading up an illegal operation to press the leaders of hesder yeshivas—schools that combine advanced Talmudic studies with military service in the IDF—to put their facilities at the disposal of Jewish Home for the elections of that year. Leaked US State Department cables from 2008, published by Wikileaks, also revealed that Shtul was directly involved in the expansion of Eli in such a way as to possibly be in violation of Israeli government regulations regarding settlement building:
- Eli has an approved plan and defined municipal boundaries. However, in late 2007, the Civil Administration made public the municipal boundaries of settlements in response to a Peace Now court action. Peace Now reviewed these records and determined that Eli has grown outside its approved plan and its municipal boundaries, including in the area of Neve Shir. The area in which the new caravans is located is also outside the municipal boundaries, based on information obtained by Peace Now.
Contents
History
The organisation became a registered charity in 1992.[1]
Finances and Funding
Between 2010 and 2014 the charity spent £10,093.[4]
People
Board of Directors circa July 2015
Anthony Epton | Alfed Frei | Gary Silverman | Lior Shtul
Contact
Address circa July 2015:
- Goldwins Chartered Accountants
- 75A Maygrove Road
- London
- NW6 2EG
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Charity Commission Website Charity Framework. Accessed 7 July 2015.
- ↑ B'Tselem Website Settlements. Accessed 7 July 2015.
- ↑ Staff, 'Bennett Welcomes Yigal Dilmoni to Jewish Home Primaries', Arutz Sheva 7, 9 December 2014, accessed 7 July 2015
- ↑ Charity Commission Website Charity Overview. Accessed 7 July 2015.
